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Sunday, November 18, 2012

Japanese fight their gov't over Korean war-time victims

Kwak
Kwy-hoon, left, a survivor of the atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima on
Aug. 6, 1945, points to the dossiers donated by Japanese activists and
human rights lawyers at the National Institute of Korean History in
Gawcheon, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. Ichiba Junko, center, president
of Osaka-based Association of Citizens for Supporting South Korean
Atomic Bomb Victims, and Lee Jae-suk, another survivor of the atomic
bomb, stand next to Kwak. Korea Times

GWACHEON,
Gyeonggi Province – A Hiroshima court’s historic ruling a decade ago in
favor of Kwak Kwy-hoon, a Korean survivor of the 1945 atomic bomb
blast, would have never been possible without the help of Japanese
activists and human rights lawyers, he said recently.

The
nature of the years-long legal battle calling for equal treatment for
Korean victims was unique, in that Japanese activists were in the same
boat with Korean survivors to fight against the Japanese government.

Despite
the partial victory in 2002, Kwak, 88, told The Korea Times last
Thursday that he, with strong support from dedicated Japanese activists
and lawyers, continued the legal fight against lingering discrimination.

Kwak is one of the approximately 70,000 Korean
victims of the atomic bombing of the two Japanese cities of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki which occurred in August, 1945.

Nearly
40,000 Koreans died from burns, radiation sickness or other injuries.
Among the remaining 30,000, some 23,000 survivors, including Kwak,
returned to Korea after World War II without getting compensation for
their injuries and forced labor.

Kwak, who back then served in the Japanese military was based in Hiroshima. He was drafted a year earlier at 19.

“It
was a beautiful morning on Aug. 6. I and my colleagues in the military
were preparing for our daily routine,” he recalled on the day when the
atomic bombs rained down on Hiroshima. “I saw an airplane fly in the sky
and thought that it was cool. Suddenly, all the area became as dark as
midnight. Later, I found myself bleeding and my back, the back side of
my head and other parts of my body were burnt because of the bombing.”

Kwak, then 20, was released two weeks after he was hospitalized.

He said, like him, the majority of the Korean victims were forced laborers.

“Back
in 1944, all people of my age who were born in 1924, were forced to
work as either soldiers or military personnel by Japan.”

The
Japanese government has provided its nationals, who were victimized by
the atomic bomb blast, with medical treatment and allowances.

But
these were unavailable for Korean or other foreign survivors of the
atomic bomb blast because Executive Order 402 stipulated that only
Japanese nationals are entitled to such benefits.

It
took nearly six decades for Kwak and other Korean survivors to
eventually be considered eligible to receive Japanese
government-sponsored medical care and financial compensation following a
lengthy litigation process initiated in 1998.

In
December 2002, a Hiroshima court made a historic ruling that all victims
of the atomic bomb blast, regardless of their nationality, are eligible
for such benefits. Consequently, in 2003, the Japanese government
scrapped the executive order in question.

Kwak said he had never imagined that he would win the legal battle.

Ichiba
Junko, a veteran Japanese activist who has dedicated her life to fight
for Korean victims of the atomic bombings, and human rights lawyers were
behind this.

These dedicated Japanese were accused
of siding with Korean survivors by their government. But this did little
to dissuade them from fighting the good cause.

Ongoing battle

Since
joining the Association of Citizens for Supporting South Korean Atomic
Bomb Victims based in Osaka in 1978 as a college student, Junko, 56, now
president of the organization, has lived up to her commitments of
fighting against an unrepentant Japan.

Junko helped
Korean survivors in their legal fight against the Japanese government,
played a key role in raising awareness of these victims in the Japanese
public discourse and raised funds to help the victims. She contacted
compassionate human rights lawyers to join the cause.

Nearly
800 grass-roots Japanese people of all walks of life joined hands for
the campaign to help Korean survivors. Each of them pays the annual
membership fee of 4,000 Japanese yen (approximately 55,000 won) to join
the group.

“We use membership fees to help Korean survivors. If we face shortages of financial resources, we fundraise,” Junko said.

The
veteran activist said she noticed a shift in the way Japanese officials
dealt with Korean victims before and after the 1990s.

“When
I and Korean survivors met Japanese foreign ministry officials in the
1980s to ask them to consider the victims for medical support and
compensation, they used to be snobbish and arrogant. I saw some Korean
survivors I took to the ministry weep after the meeting as they were
hurt by the way Japanese officials treated them,” Junko said.

“But
after the 1990s, Japanese officials treated them nicely, although they
repeated the same old rhetoric that all compensation was over in 1965
when Korea and Japan signed an agreement. They provided us a cup of hot
tea, saying they sympathized with the victims for the plight they were
forced to face back then.”

The Japanese activist
observed that South Korea’s rise from a poor, authoritarian nation to a
thriving economy with full-blown democracy after the Seoul Summer
Olympics in 1988 was probably at play behind the shift of Japanese
officials’ attitude toward Korean victims.

She
visited Seoul last week for a seminar on the atomic bomb survivors held
at the National Institute of Korean History based in the suburban city
of Gwacheon.

The event took place to commemorate
the Japanese activists’ donation of dossiers they compiled for the legal
battles to the state-run institute.